Idoru

by William Gibson

  “Nothing,” Chia said. “It's too expensive! We're running out of money!”

  “Oh,” Maryalice said, blinking. “Right. I don't have any, though. Eddie's cut my cards off, for sure, and the first time I plug one, he'll know exactly where I am.”

  Masahiko spoke to Chia without removing the eyecups. “We have your father's expense account on line…”

  Maryalice smiled. “What we like to hear, right?”

  Chia was pulling off her tip-sets. “Youll have to take it to them,” she said to Maryalice, “the nano-thing. I'll give it to you now, you take it to them, give it to them, tell them it was all a mistake.” She scooted on her hands and knees over to where her bag sat open on the floor. She dug for the thing, found it, held it out to Maryalice in what was left of the blue and yellow bag from the SeaTac duty-free. The dark gray plastic and the rows of little holes made it look like some kind of deformed designer pepper grinder. “Take it. Explain to them. Tell them it was just a mistake.”

  Maryalice cringed. “Put it back, okay?” She swallowed. “See, the problem isn't whether or not there's been a mistake. The problem's they'll kill us now anyway, because we know about it. And Eddie, he'll let 'em. 'Cause he has to. And 'cause he's just sort of generally fed up with me, the ungrateful little greasy shithead motherfucker…” Maryalice shook her head sadly. “It's about the end of our relationship, you ask me.”

  “Account accessed,” Masahiko said. “Join us here now, please. You have another visitor.”

  29. Her Bad Side

  Arleigh's van smelled of long-chain monomers and warm electronics. The rear seats had been removed to make room for the collection of black consoles, cabled together and wedged into place with creaking wads of bubble-pack.

  Rez rode up front, beside the driver, the ponytailed Japanese Californian from Akihabara. Laney squatted on a console, between Arleigh and Yamazaki, with Willy Jude and the red-haired tech behind them. Laney's ribs hurt, where he'd come down on the table, and that seemed to be getting worse. He'd discovered that the top of his left sock was sticky with blood, but he wasn't sure where it had come from or even if it was his own.

  Arleigh had her phone pressed to her ear. “Option eight,” she said, evidently to the driver, who touched the pad beside the dashboard map. Laney glimpsed Tokyo grid-segments whipping past on the screen. “We're taking Rez back with us.”

  “Take me to the Imperial,” Rez said.

  “Blackwell's orders,” Arleigh said.

  “Let me talk to him.” Reaching back for the phone.

  They swung left, into a wider street, their lights picking out a small crowd speedwalking away from the Western World, all of them trying to look as though they just happened to be there, out for a brisk stroll. The neighborhood was nondescript and generically urban and, aside from the guilty-looking speedwalkers, quite deserted.

  “Keithy,” Rez said, “I want to go back to the hotel.” The terrible white daystar of a police helicopter swept over them, carbon-black shadows speeding away across concrete. Rez was listening to the phone. They passed an all-night noodle wagon, its interior ghostly behind curtains of yellowed plastic. Images flicking past on a small screen behind the counter. Arleigh nudged Laney's knee, pointed past Rez's shoulder. A trio of white armored cars shot through the approaching intersection, blue lights flashing on their rectangular turrets, and vanished without a sound. Rez turned, handing the phone back to her. “Keithy's being his para self. He wants me to go to your hotel and wait for him.”

  Arleigh took the phone. “Does he know what it was about?”

  “Autograph-hunters?” Rez started to turn back around in his seat.

  “What happened to the idoru?” Laney asked.

  Rez peered at him. “If you kidnapped that new platform—and I thought it was wonderful—what exactly would you have?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Rei's only reality is the realm of ongoing serial creation,” Rez said. “Entirely process; infinitely more than the combined sum of her various selves. The platforms sink beneath her, one after another, as she grows denser and more complex…” The long green eyes seemed to grow dreamy, in the light of passing storefronts, and then the singer turned away.

  Laney watched Arleigh dab at the cut corner of her mouth with a tissue.

  “Laney-san…” Yamazaki, a whisper. Putting something into his hand. A cabled set of eyephones. “We have global fan-activity database…”

  His ribs hurt. Was his leg bleeding? “Later, okay?”

  Arleigh's suite was at least twice as large as Laney's room. It had its own miniature sitting room, separated from the bedroom and bath with gilded French doors. The four chairs in the sitting room had very tall, very narrow backs, each one tapering to a rendition of the elf hat, done in sandblasted steel. These chairs were quite amazingly uncomfortable, and Laney was hunched forward on one now, in considerable pain, hugging his bruised ribs. The blood in his sock had turned out to be his own, from a skinned patch on his left shin. He'd plastered it over with micropore from the professional-looking first-aid kit in Arleigh's bathroom. He doubted there was anything there for his ribs, but he was wondering if some kind of elastic bandage might help.

  Yamazaki was on the chair to his right, reattaching the sleeve of his plaid jacket with bright gold safety pins from an Evil Elf Hat emergency sewing kit. Laney had never actually seen anyone use a hotel room's emergency sewing kit for anything. Yamazaki had removed his damaged glasses and was working with the jacket held close to his face. This made him look older, and somehow calmer. To Yamazaki's right, the red-haired technician, who was called Shannon, was sitting up very straight and reading a complimentary style magazine.

  Rez was sprawled on the bed, propped up on the maximum available number of pillows, and Willy Jude sat at its foot, channel-surfing with his video units. The panic at the Western World apparently hadn't made the news yet, although the drummer said he'd caught an oblique reference on one of the clubbing channels.

  Arleigh was standing by the window, pressing an ice cube in a white washcloth against her swollen lip.

  “Did he give you any idea of when he might turn up?” Rez, from the bed.

  “No,” Arleigh said, “but he made it clear he wanted you to wait.”

  Rez sighed.

  “Let the people take care of you, Rez,” Willy Jude said. “It's what they're paid for.”

  Laney had taken it for granted that all of them were expected to wait, along with Rez, for Blackwell. Now he decided to try to return to his room. All they could do was stop him.

  Blackwell opened the door from the corridor, pocketing some-thing black, something that definitely wasn't your standard-issue hotel key. There was a pale X of micropore across his right cheek, the longest arm reaching the tip of his chin.

  “Evening, Keithy,” Rez said.

  “You really mustn't piss off like that,” the bodyguard said. “Those Russians are a serious crew. Massive triers, those boys. Wouldn't do if they got hold of you, Rozzer. Not at all. You wouldn't like it.”

  “Kuwayama and the platform?”

  “Have to tell you, Rez.” Blackwell stood at the foot of the bed. “I've seen you go with women I wouldn't take to a shit-fight on a dark night, but at least they were human. Hear what I'm saying?”

  “I do, Keithy,” the singer said. “I know how you feel about her. But you'll come around. It's the way of things, Keithy. The new way. New world.”

  “I don't know anything about that. My old dad was a Painter and Docker; had a docky's brief. Broke his heart I turned out the sort of crim I did. Died before you'd got me out of B Division. Would've liked him to see me assume responsibility, Rez. For you. For your safety. But now I don't know. Might not impress him so. Might tell me I'm just minding a fool with a bloated sense of himself.”

  Rez came up off the bed, surprising Laney with his speed, a performer's grace, and then he was in front of Blackwell, his hands on the huge shoulders. “But you don't think that
, do you, Keithy? You didn't in Pentridge. Not when you came for me. And not when I came back for you.”

  Blackwell's eyes glistened. He was about to say something, but Yamazaki suddenly stood up, blinking, and put his green plaid sportscoat on. He craned his neck, peering nearsightedly at the pins he'd used to mend it, then seemed to realize that everyone in the suite was looking at him. He coughed nervously and sat back down.

  A silence followed. “Out of line, I was, Rozzer,” Blackwell said, breaking it.

  Rez clapped the bodyguard's shoulder, releasing him. “Stressed. I know.” Rez smiled. “Kuwayama? The platform?”

  “Had his own team there.”

  “And our crashers?”

  “That's a bit odd,” Blackwell said. “Kombinat, Rez. Say we've stolen something of theirs. Or at least that's all the one I questioned knew.”

  Rez looked puzzled, but seemed to put whatever it was out of his mind. “Take me back to the hotel,” he said.

  Blackwell checked his huge steel watch. “We're still sweeping, there. Another twenty minutes and I'll check with them.”

  Laney took this as his opportunity, standing up and stepping past Blackwell to the door. “I'm going to take a hot shower,” he said. “Cracked my ribs up there.” No one said anything. “Call if you need me.” Then he opened the door, stepped out, closed it behind him, and limped in what he hoped was the direction of the elevator.

  It was. In it, he leaned against the mirrored wall and touched the button for his floor.

  It said something in a soothing tone, Japanese.

  The door closed. He shut his eyes.

  He opened his eyes as the door opened. Stepped out, turned the wrong way, then the right way. Fishing for his wallet, where he'd put his key. Still there. Bath, hot shower, these concepts more theoretical as he approached his room. Sleep. That was it. Undress and lie down and not be conscious.

  He swiped the key down the slot. Nothing. Again. Click.

  Kathy Torrance, sitting on the edge of his bed. She smiled at him. Pointed at the moving figures on the screen. One of whom was Laney, naked, with a larger erection than he recalled ever having had. The girl vaguely familiar, but whoever she was, he didn't remember doing that with her.

  “Don't just stand there,” Kathy said. “You have to see this.”

  “That's not me,” Laney said.

  “I know,” she said, delighted. “He's way too big. And I'd love to see you try to prove it.”

  30. The Etruscan

  Chia worked the tips back on, regoggled, let Masahiko take her to his room. That same instant transition, the virtual Venice icon strobing…. Gomi Boy was there, and someone else, though at first she couldn't see him. Just this glass tumbler on the work-surface that hadn't been there before, mapped to a higher resolution than the rest of the room: filthy, chipped at the rim, something crusted at the bottom.

  “That woman,” Gomi Boy began, but someone coughed. A strange dry rattle.

  “You are an interesting young woman,” said a voice unlike any Chia had heard, a weird, attenuated rasp that might have been compiled from a library of faint, dry, random sounds. So that a word's long vowel might be wires in the wind, or the click of a consonant the rattle of a dead leaf against a window. “Young woman,” it said again, and then there was something indescribable, which she guessed was meant as laughter.

  “This is the Etruscan,” Masahiko said. “The Etruscan accessed your father's expense account for us. He is most skilled.”

  Something there for a second. Skull-like. Above the dirty glass. The mouth drawn and petulant. “It was nothing, really…”

  She told herself it was all presentation. Like when Zona presented, you could never quite focus on her. This was like that, but more extreme. And a lot of work put into the audio. But she didn't like it.

  “You brought me here to meet him?” she asked Masahiko.

  “Oh, no,” said the Etruscan, the Oh a polyphonic chorale, “I just wanted a look, dear.” The thing like laughter.

  “The woman,” Gomi Boy said. “Did you arrange for her to meet you, at Hotel Di?”

  “No,” Chia said. “She checked the taxi cabs, so you aren't as smart as you think.”

  “Well put.” The put the sound of a single pebble falling into a dry marble fountain. Chia focused on the glass. A huge centipede lay curled at its bottom, a thing the color of dead cuticle. She saw that it had tiny, pink hands—

  The glass was gone.

  “Sorry,” Masahiko said. “He wished only to meet you.”

  “Who is the woman in Hotel Di?” Gomi Boy's anime eyes were bright and eager, but his tone was hard.

  “Maryalice,” Chia said. “Her boyfriend's with those Russians. The thing they're after's in my bag there.”

  “What thing?”

  “Maryalice says it's a nano-assembler.”

  “Unlikely,” Gomi Boy said.

  “Tell it to the Russians.”

  “But you have contraband? In the room?”

  “I've got something they want.”

  Gomi Boy grimaced, vanished.

  “Where'd he go?”

  “This changes the situation,” Masahiko said. “You did not tell us you have contraband.”

  “You didn't ask! You didn't ask why they were looking for me

  Masahiko shrugged, calm as ever. “We were not certain that it was you they were interested in. The Kombinat would be very eager for the skills of someone like the Etruscan, for instance. Many people know of Hak Nam, but few know how to enter. We reacted to protect the integrity of the city.”

  “But your computer's in the hotel room. They can just come there and get it.”

  “It no longer matters,” he said. “I am no longer engaged in processing. My duties are assumed by others. Gomi Boy is concerned now for his safety outside, you understand? Penalties for possession of contraband are harsh. He is particularly vulnerable, because he deals in second-hand equipment.”

  “I don't think it's the police you want to worry about, right now. I think we want to call the police. Maryalice says those Russians'll kill us, if they find us.”

  “The police would not be a good idea. The Etruscan has accessed your father's account in Singapore. That is a crime.”

  “I think I'd rather get arrested than killed.”

  Masahiko considered that. “Come with me,” he said. “Your visitor is waiting.”

  “Not the centipede,” Chia said. “Forget it.”

  “No,” he said, “not the Etruscan. Come.”

  And they were out of his room, fast-forward through the maze of Hak Nam, up twisted stairwells and through corridors, the strange, compacted world flickering past…. “What is this place? A communal site, right? But what are you so worried about? Why's it all a secret?”

  “Walled City is of the net, but not on it. There are no laws here, only agreements.”

  “You can't be on the net and not be on the net,” Chia said, as they shot up a final flight of stairs.

  “Distributed processing,” he said. “Interstitial. It began with a shared killfile—”

  “Zona!” There across this uneven roofscape, overgrown with strangeness.

  “Touch nothing. Some are traps. I come to you.” Zona, presenting in that quick, fragmentary way, moved forward.

  To Chia's right, a kind of ancient car lay tilted in a drift of random textures, something like a Christmas tree growing from its unbroken windshield. Beyond that…

  She guessed that the rooftops of the Walled City were its dumping ground, but the things abandoned there were like objects out of a dream, bit-mapped fantasies discarded by their creators, their jumbled shapes and textures baffling the eye, the attempt to sort and decipher them inducing a kind of vertigo. Some were moving.

  Then a movement high in the gasoline sky caught her eye. Zona's bird-things?

  “I went to your site,” Chia said. “You weren't there, some-thing—”

  “I know. Did you see it?” As Zona passed
the Christmas tree, its round, silver ornaments displayed black eye-holes, each pair turning to follow her.

  “No. I thought I heard it.”

  “I do not know what it is.” Zona's presentation was even quicker and more jumpy than usual. “I came here for advice. They told me that you had been to my site, and that now you were here…”

  “You know this place?”

  “Someone here helped me establish my site. It is impossible to come here without an invitation, you understand? My name is on a list. Although I cannot go below, into the city itself, unaccompanied.”

  “Zona, I'm in so much trouble now! We're hiding in this horrible hotel, and Maryalice is there—”

  “This bitch who made you her mule, yes? She is where?”

  “In the room at this hotel. She said she broke up with her boyfriend, and it's his, the nano-thing—”

  “The what?”

  “She says it's some kind of nano-assembler thing.”

  Zona Rosa's features snapped into focus as her heavy eyebrows shot up. “Nanotechnology?”

  “This is in your bag?” Masahiko asked.

  “Wrapped in plastic.”

  “One moment.” He vanished.

  “Who is that?” Zona asked.

  “Masahiko. Mitsuko's brother. He lives here.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Back to the hotel we're porting from.”

  “This shit you are in, it is crazy,” Zona said.

  “Please, Zona, help me! I don't think I'll ever get home!”

  Masahiko reappeared, the thing in his hand minus the duty-free bag. “I scanned it,” he said. “Immediate identification as Rodel-van Erp primary biomolecular programming module C-slash-7A. This is a lab prototype. We are unable to determine its exact legal status, but the production model, C-slash-9E, is Class 1 nanotechnology, proscribed under international law. Japanese law, conviction of illegal possession of Class 1 device carries automatic life sentence.”

  “Life?” Chia said.

  “Same for thermonuclear device,” he said, apologetically, “poison gas, biological weapon.” He held up the scanned object for Zona's inspection.